As noted by MLB.com’s Carrie Muskat earlier today, it’s been years since the Bartman incident — and yet, it persists as one of those unforgettable moments everyone would rather forget.

“We didn’t really understand that The Simpsons was going to become a thing,” says totally not fake TV writer Jake Sharkfins. “We were poor and young and poor. The idea was to extract every last dollar out of the Bart character as was humanly possible. That’s the only reason we condescended to write that shit song.”

While never officially released as a single in the United States, “Do the Bartman” topped the charts in a number of English-speaking countries and also New Zealand. The next year, it was nominated for an MTV Music Award award.

“Ugh, it was terrible,” recounts Sharkfins. “That shit was so annoying. And remember: I’m a person whose not-fake surname is ‘Sharkfins.’ My threshold for being annoyed is pretty high.”

In a new strategy, indicating a move away from spending money on players and toward spending on priceless artifacts from around the world, the Yankees are expected to bid big on a Japanese pitcher this offseason.

This particular pitcher is from the Kamakura period (1185-1333) and was used in traditional Buddhist rituals. Made of bronze, and 7 cm tall, it is compact, functional, and elegant.

The pitcher is expected to be their second-most-expensive offseason purchase, after a hand-carved vintage canoe, still functioning quite well but likely to become a bit of an albatross sometime short of, say, a decade or so from now.

Did I say canoe? Wait….

Behavioral science — or, at least the branch of it which one is able to condense into four minutes for the benefit of NPR — suggests that there are a number of likely reasons why a Boston fan might cheer wildly in response to David Ortiz’s grand slam from Sunday night.

Behavioral science — in this case, the sort which requires a full 28 minutes of NPR’s time — also posits that humans are programmed, basically, to feel empathy for those other humans who are in closest proximity to them.

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TORONTO — Blue Jays catcher J.P. Arencibia walked 18 times in 497 plate appearances in 138 games in 2013, his walk rate dropping to 3.6 percent, less than half the 7.4 percent he posted in his rookie year in 2011. And the 27-year-old is continuing to adjust: he’s hoping to eliminate walking entirely from his game in 2014.

“I’m just not going to do it anymore,” Arencibia said. “My approach is to go up there and try and drive the ball, hit the ball, and I’m going to try and do that every time I step into the batter’s box next year.”

For Arencibia, who hit 21 home runs and drove in 55 runs for Toronto this past season, and who’s fourth among major-league catchers with 62 home runs since 2011, the pros of not walking outweigh the cons.

“It’s one less thing I have to talk about, you know? If I vow to not take a walk and it happens, it’s a bonus, the way I see it. I mean, it’s impossible to keep everyone satisfied, so hopefully this will help.”

Arencibia walked only five times in 173 plate appearance after this summer’s All-Star break. He wants to bring that same second-half approach to spring training.

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That looks like an overpitched delivery to me. (I just wanted to write *sticky wicket* before because, sticky wicket.)

The author has wasted the last, probably, 25 minutes of his life constructing this poorly formatted survey. The reader is invited to wasted a shorter time than that participating in same.

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This week’s episode of Back In the Game is called “Play hard or go home.” I wish I could have that choice. Instead, I stayed home today thanks to my disease vector of a son. And while I could  say that this stupid show made me sick, slowly sapping me of my will to fight on against life’s many injustices, that would be a lie. And I cannot abide a lie that doesn’t benefit me in some way. Plus, Carson gets cross if we don’t post, and it disturbs me to see such a gentle hipster stirred to anger and making threats he can’t follow through on from across the ocean.

So what do we have this week? As the rookie coach and as the girl, Terry is tasked with running the Little League’s dreaded annual fund raising campaign by the misogynist douchebag league president whose name I can never remember (which can’t be a good sign for this show since he’s one of the four main characters). Simultaneously, she is trying to find a date for The Cannon, who has seemingly turned extra mean because he’s not getting any. Meanwhile, Danny is trying to make inroads with the 10 year old Baseball Annie, Vanessa, who has temporarily broken up with her asshole boyfriend.

Terry sends the kids out in a parking lot full of ladies to find a date for The Cannon, and they return with Night Court veteran Markie Post, who is way too good for this show. The Cannon, to teach his daughter a lesson about meddling in his love life, steals the Little League money and hires a barfly to hang around the house and annoy everybody. Then he goes out with Markie Post anyway and Terry sells The Cannon’s TV to get the candy money back. Great, now none of them get to watch TV anymore. On the bright side, they won’t have to watch the desperate celebration of humanity’s core awfulness that is this show. So kudos to them.

Also, congratulations to Danny for somehow stealing Vanessa’s iced tea, putting a love note (that somehow stays dry) under the bottle cap, and slipping it back into her lunch. When she reads it, she smiles, probably to cover up how disturbed she is that he broke into her locker, stole her drink, and broke the seal that’s supposed to reassure you your beverage hasn’t been poisoned. Here’s the stupid episode in all of what passes for glory in this worthless age:

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The following tweet is entirely and in-no-way altered from the original (click to embiggen):

The Pirates are done. The Rays are done. The A’s are done. Baseball, officially, is stupid.

Jose Molina said it best without saying anything: